New Orleans

Let me preface this by saying that this is going to be my less than favorable review of our trip to New Orleans.

What we expected and what we experienced were two VERY different things!

Thursday we landed in New Orleans after a pretty uneventful flight. I had arranged for transportation to pick us up from the airport and take us to our hotel. After a little less than an hour of waiting, the slowest man in America finally arrived to pick us up. I don't think I've ever seen a person move so slow before. This was definitely an omen of things to come.

Eventually we arrived at the Renaissance Pere Marquette. The hotel was really pretty and I got a great deal on Priceline for our room.
Our room was pretty small, but it was okay. We really didn't plan to spend much time awake in it. Unfortunately, we also didn't spend any time sleeping in our room, thanks to our lovely neighbors who screamed, slammed doors and blasted the TV every.single.night!

We decided to walk around the French Quarter for a while and take in some of the sights. If you decide to visit the French Quarter, you'll know you've arrived when you can smell a heavy mix of vomit, urine and horse poop. It's pretty sad to stand and admire a beautiful historic building while standing in a dried pile of vomit.

Friday I had booked us for a combo tour of Oak Alley Plantation and an airboat tour in the swamps.

We were picked up by Louisiana Tour Company, driven all over the French Quarter, then transferred to another bus, driven around the French Quarter again and then sat on the side of the road for 45 minutes while the driver tried to figure out how to use the credit card machine. Then we stopped at an ATM machine where he demanded everyone use their debit cards to get cash to pay for the tour. At this time we were running about an hour late. I was getting increasingly furious and wanted to abandon the tour, but the driver told me we weren't running late at all. Okay, fine.

We were told that the drive would take about 35-40 minutes. About 45 minutes into the drive, the driver told us that we were running behind and that he intended to go about 30 miles over the speed limit to make up for time. Then he tried to convince one of the passengers to pretend to be sick in the event he was pulled over. At this point, I'm wondering how hard it would be to re-book my flights and go back home.

After about an hour and 15 minutes of driving, we arrived at Oak Alley where we were made to stay on the bus and wait for him to buy us tickets. You know, the tickets I already bought online the week before. Ugh... and the saga continues...

Oak Alley was beautiful, but since our idiot driver got us there so late, we were only allowed to visit for one hour. This was just long enough to see the inside of the house. We had no time at all to tour the grounds. These pics were taken on the way into the house.

The view from the balcony of the house.

On the way back to the bus from hell.

This picture was taken from the road where the bus driver pulled over so I could quickly snap a couple shots.

After leaving Oak Alley, we were bussed to yet another bus of angry passengers who had been waiting at a Burger King for us for over an hour. Again, I'm trying to figure out how to re-book our flight home.

It turned out that our airboat tour was the best part of our trip. We could have, and probably should have, just stayed home and gone on an airboat tour, but whatever. At least we had some fun in Louisiana.

Our tour guide was great though. He was very knowledgable and passionate about the swamps. Apparently alligators like marshmallows!

I missed the shot, but he actually kissed alligators.

Off he goes...

Joe on the airboat.

I got to sit next to the driver. I guess this is the best seat in the house. I think I was the least soaked out of our group.

Joe got a "gator-hawk".

Joe holding the gator. I have an issue with critters, so I didn't hold him, but I did touch him. That's as far as I go.

View of the St. Louis Cathedral.

Me in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. This picture is really deceiving. If you could only see all the sleeping/passed out/maybe dead people laying on the ground right in front of this historic church.

Andrew Jackson

We took a mule-drawn carriage ride that went in a circle around the French Quarter. Not exactly where we thought we were going. We were hoping to see and hear some history about the city, but neither Joe or I could understand a single word our driver said... other than that he wanted a tip.

Here's Cafe Du Monde. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but that line goes around 3 sides of the building. I don't have that kind of patience for coffee and donuts. We did have coffee and beignets here at night though.

Here's another picture of the cathedral taken from across the street. This was a great spot to get some pictures of it, but there was a weird man bothering people about their shoes and once he started bothering Joe about his, we quickly walked away.

This is an example of a street performer. He paints himself silver or gold and acts like he's a statue. If you stare at him or take a picture of him, another guy will bring that bucket over to you and ask you to pay him. For looking at him. I don't get this.

Sunday was our last day in New Orleans thankfully. Since the St. Charles Streetcar was FINALLY working, we hightailed it down the to Garden District. I wanted to see the old cemetary first.

Unfortunately, the cemetary is closed on Sundays. Ugh...

Here's some lovely pics taken by my camera shoved through the gate.

Corn fence made of iron.

This used to be Anne Rice's house. I didn't realize she didn't live there anymore until we already trudged down the insanely hazardous sidewalks all the way there.

Beads cover every inch of the city. In the trees, on the power lines, under your feet, falling from the buildings above to hit you in the head, etc.

Wrapped around poles miles and miles away from the French Quarter.

The St. Charles Streetcar. It may or may not stop for you. It may even stop, refuse to open the door and then ride away like this one did. I love a good tease. Especially when I need to get back so I can make my flight.

All in all, this was a TERRIBLE vacation. When we got back to our hotel to get picked up, the hotel had lost our checked bags. Then we watched our airport shuttle drive away as the hotel insisted that someone else's bags were mine. After pitching a fit and demanding to be let into the room where they had the bags, I found our luggage and we were picked up in a party bus. Yes, a party bus to be taken to the airport. Whatever. I'm home now.

My suggestions for anyone who wants to go to New Orleans is this: Unless you ARE a frat boy, love frat boys, love the scent of vomit, urine and horse feces, don't need to be anywhere on time, don't care if it takes an hour to be served coffee, don't mind giving money to people who's talent is standing still on a milk-crate, then don't go to New Orleans.

I can't stress this enough. This is a huge waste of money!!

Fun with Photoshop!

I've been using Photoshop for quite a few years for cropping and fixing little things here and there, but I've never used it to completely alter anything before. I've been looking through my NYC photos and thinking they were a little boring, so I decided to give my filters a try. I never knew how much fun filters could be!

This is the original shot. A kind of boring picture of the Chrysler Building. I love the building, but there really is no good way to get a shot of it from the ground.

And here are some things I made. I don't really remember all the filters I used, but some of them came out pretty neat!

I think this one's my favorite.

This one is really different. I could totally see something like this on a graphic t-shirt!

Week 4 Portraits

This week's assignment was portraits and I keep only the best models on staff, of course. I've been wanting some nice pictures of Cameron in his gi and black belt. I've been wanting to take him to the beach all week to get some pictures, but these tropical storms have been putting a damper on things. I finally got him out there lastnight after the storm and the clouds made a great backdrop!

This is the picture I submitted for class. I love his serious expression. Makes me proud to see him so grown up. :)

I turned it B&W so I can add it to my B&W photo collage. I might do some tight cropping of his face too. If you click on the picture it will get bigger and you can see the detail and catch lights in his eyes. Love it!

Here's another pic I took of him playing out in the rain. He was using the umbrella as a parachute for his skates rather than keeping the rain off himself. Boys...

And of course I couldn't leave Joey out. Notice the bright orange Crocs. HA! I WIN! There's a backstory to the shoes. Joey has refused to wear anything but blue Crocs for almost an entire year. I finally had enough and we took him out of the house kicking and screaming with orange shoes on. I thought it was a compromise. At least he still gets to wear Crocs.

Photography 101 - Week 3 (photos getting even worse!)

This week's assignment was to take a marketing picture, which is pretty vague in my book. Well, to be honest, I think all the assignments are pretty vague, but I suppose he wants us to use our imaginations, which I lack.

So of course I waited until the very last minute to take my picture and then I couldn't decide what a "marketing picture" would be, so today I'm selling my lovely NYC coffee cup and the coffee in it. Unfortunately, I'm selling it at work in an office lit by fluorescent lights and about half of them are burned out. I've tried just about every setting I can think of and I just can't seem to get this white balance thing worked out. After about 50 tries, I gave up and this is the picture I submitted. :( I'm not thrilled with it and did I mention that our pictures are shown to the entire class on a big screen TV? Yeah, even less thrilled now! What the heck did people do before editing?

Just for my sanity, I edited the color a little bit. This would be a much better shot if we were allowed to use Photoshop! I guess that would defeat the purpose of this class though, huh?

Week 2 Photography 101

Week 2's pictures are complete. I wanted to do a night shot and the St. Pete Pier lights up so pretty at night, so it was the obvious choice. I have friends who live on the 29th floor of a beautiful condo overlooking the pier and this was shot from their balcony.


All 3 of these pics were shot at F22 and if I could only remember what shutter speed, I would tell you, and an ISO of 100.

This is the picture I submitted for class.

I actually like this picture better, but I managed to cut the boathouse out of the picture somehow, so I chose the first one.

This isn't the greatest picture, as the parking garage is really blown out, but I still like it. It's a great view!

Week 1 Photography 101

I started a photography class a couple weeks ago in hopes to be able to take some better pictures of the boys and vacations. Each week we have a photo assignment and this week's was to take a picture of our job or hobby if we don't work. I thought about taking a picture of my calculator and I did, in fact, take a picture of my calculator, but I decided it was pretty boring. So I ventured out into the shop and snapped about a million pictures of things I have no clue about and this is what I submitted; a picture of jack stands. And now my classmates probably think I'm a mechanic, but that's okay. At least it's more exciting than being an accountant! This picture was taken in "P" mode, which must stand for "Pretending not to be using automatic" because it's definitely still automatic. This coming week's picture can't be taken in automatic or "P" mode, so we shall see how that turns out!